Thursday, July 17, 2025 - Drug kingpin El Chapo's son is set to reveal all he knows about corrupt Mexican officials to US prosecutors.
Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán's son, Ovidio Guzmán López,
pleaded guilty to two counts of drug conspiracy and two counts of knowingly
engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise before a federal judge
in Chicago last Friday.
The 35-year-old jailed boss, who oversaw the Sinaloa
Cartel's 'Los Chapitos' faction, agreed to cooperate with prosecutors who have
accused him of distributing drugs and running a criminal enterprise.
New York and Illinois federal prosecutors alleged
that Guzmán López and his three brothers assumed control of the Sinaloa Cartel
once El Chapo was arrested in Mexico in 2016 and then extradited in 2019 to the
United States, where he is serving a life sentence at
a Colorado super maximum-security prison.
The indictments indicated that the transnational drug
trafficking organization made hundreds of millions by shipping, producing, and
trafficking fentanyl to the United States.
Now Guzmán López's mea-culpa could very well open a
Pandora's box into the Sinaloa Cartel's dealings with former and current law
enforcement and government officials back home in Mexico.
His high-profile lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman slammed the
Mexican government while talking to reporters after leaving the courtroom.
'It's not so much of a surprise that somehow, for 40 years,
the Mexican government, Mexican law enforcement, did nothing to capture who was
probably the biggest drug dealer, perhaps in the history of the world,' he
said.
Lichtman was referring to Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, who
co-founded the cartel with El Chapo and had never been arrested until El
Chapo's also jailed son, Joaquín Guzmán López, set him up and flew him across
the border to Texas, where he turned himself in, and El Mayo was captured.
'So what I would say to Pres. Sheinbaum is: perhaps she
should look to her predecessors in the president's office and try to figure out
why that happened, why there was never any effort to arrest,' the famous
criminal lawyer said. 'I don't even know if Zambada has been charged in
Mexico.'
In an X post on Friday night, Lichtman appeared to take another swipe at Sheinbaum for reportedly shielding criminal organizations.
'Apparently, the president of Mexico is displeased with my truthful comments about her corrupt office and government,' Lichtman wrote.
'She can call as many hastily convened press conferences as
she likes, but the people of Mexico (and myself) know that she acts more as the
public relations arm of a drug trafficking organization than as the honest
leader that the Mexican people deserve. I'll have more to say on this shortly.'
El Chapo's two other sons, Iván Archivaldo and Jesús
Alfredo Guzmán, who are both wanted by the United States government, have hired
Lichtman, who has over three decades of experience as a lawyer.
Retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent and chief of
operations Ray Donovan told DailyMail.com that Ovidio's and Joaquín's
cooperation could allow for the Mexican government to reorganize itself.
'I think with the potential that Ovidio, Joaquin and others
provide information on corrupt politicians and corrupt officials, is an
opportunity for Mexico to reset and Sheinbaum is the president to do that,'
said Donovan, who took down El Chapo
'So, you can look at it like this is very good, very bad for
her party or you can look at it as, "I'm in control now, we want to be
strong partners and we want to take Mexico forward not backwards."'
'This is an opportunity for her to do that. Now, the actions
she has taken I think have been substantial. And clearly she is very astute,
she is different from other presidents, he added.
'The good news about Claudia Sheinbaum, besides the fact
that she is highly intelligent, I think that the corruption piece that often
surrounds politicians, she doesn't have that.
'So, this is an opportunity to really take Mexico forward
under her leadership and partnership with the United States. Regardless of if
charges were to come out against politicians, she's taking concrete action
forward, and I think it's going to be great. I see her as a really, influential
leader in the Western Hemisphere. It's not a bad thing.'
Ovidio Guzmán López's decision to accept
responsibility for his wrongdoing in court last Friday came just two
months after 17 family members, including his mother, sister, wife, and
children, were met by U.S. federal agents at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in
San Diego and brought across the border.
0 Comments